Park Ji-hwoan, third from left, head of KEB Hana Bank's corporate banking, holds up a document with Christine Engstrom, director of the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) financial institutions, after joining the ADB trade financing program at the ADB headquarters in Manila, the Philippines, Dec. 10. Courtesy of KEB Hana Bank

By Park Hyong-kiKEB Hana Bank has joined the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) trade financing program, the lender said Tuesday. The program based in Manila, the Philippines, will enable KEB Hana to help local exporters reduce trade financing risks when shipping their goods to developing and underdeveloped markets. For instance, a local company can collect full payment for the delivery of ordered goods to those markets at a local KEB Hana Bank branch by providing a letter of credit issued by its importers' banks.The ADB program fully guarantees the letters of credit issued by its partner banks ― the multilateral development bank has 240 partners in the program.The move is part of efforts to boost small- and medium-sized enterprises' (SME) trade especially in Asia's emerging and underdeveloped economies.KEB Hana Bank said it is now the only local commercial bank to join all three trade financing programs run by the ADB, the U.S.-based International Finance Corp., and the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development."By joining this program, KEB Hana Bank will be able to further help local exporters seeking to advance into new markets," said Park Ji-hwoan, head of corporate banking, in a press statement. The ADB program not only aims to help exporters and importers, but also expand global banking networks to provide guarantees and lines of credit to ensure risk-free exchanges of goods and services between Asian economies. In 2017, the program backed $4.5 billion in transactions, and supported 2,822 SMEs. The most active countries using the program are Armenia, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, according to the ADB.